The Press FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1950. Western Defence

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26093, 21 April 1950, Page 6

The Press FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1950. Western Defence

Preparations for the military defence of Western Europe are quickening under the spur of the “ global “ hostility ” of Communism, as the “ Economist ” called it in an -article reported in the cable news on Tuesday. It is only a few days more than a year since the North Atlantic Treaty was signed; and while it cannot be said that it has yet contributed very much to the physical capacity of Western European nations to defend themselves, no one should be in any doubt about the profound influence it has exerted in Europe in the 12 months. Its influence has pervaded not only the military but also the economic and political fields. Without this tangible assurance that the United States, Great Britain, and Canada would not tolerate a new military aggression in Europe, one of two things must have happened. Either European countries would have exhausted themselves in a frantic effort to strengthen their individual and collective defences, or their peoples, oppressed by a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness, would have sunk into lethargy and despair. In either case they would certainly not have been able to make the impressive measure of economic reconstruction that they have made.

Here, then, is one victory already for the West in the cold war. It is no wonder Russia opposed the Atlantic Pact bitterly. She would have done so, no doubt, even if she had not believed the pact to threaten her own military security, as she professed to do. In fact, of course, it is a purely defensive pact; and the last year has demonstrated its value and efficacy. No one living outside Continental Europe can appreciate the depth of the fears of those Europeans who live in the path of the traditional routes of aggression from east to west. The fears have not been removed; but clearly they do not now dominate the lives of Europeans as they would have done in the absence of an assurance of help in arming themselves for defence and of succour in the event of their being attacked. No West European government has felt impelled to spend more on defence than its national budget can comfortably stand. Defence has its reasonable place —in some cases less than its reasonable place—among other branches of government spending; it has not dominated them. It is a measure of the growing confidence and security of Western Europe that the five Brussels Treaty Powers—Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg—last weekend decided against increasing their expenditure on defence, although their improved economic position would almost certainly have permitted increased defence votes without straining intolerably the respective national finances. In the 12 months since the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, very fair progress has been made toward an integrated defence system for Western Europe. The official communique issued after the meeting %t The Hague early this month of the Defence Ministers of the Atlantic Powers declared that “the military planning organisation “ has determined the general stra- “ tegy of defence of the North “ Atlantic Treaty area ”. Each country seems to have been allotted a general strategic aim within its capacity and suited to its geographical position and general resources. More important at this stage, as “The Times” remarked, there seems to have been broad agreement on the types of weapons each country should produce for itself and for others. There is now at least a fair assurance that money spent on the defence of Western Europe will be spent to an agreed purpose and on an agreed plan. There will be the minimum duplication of spending and effort, and, if all goes well, the maximum value will be obtained from defence budgets, which seem sure to expand rather than contract in the next few years. And it is of the greatest importance that the great plan should go well. For it can do more than ensure that the European peoples can pursue, in hope and confidence, their separate ways of economic reconstruction and social

progress. It can bring these peoples together. While it is true to say that if Europeans cannot co-operate for their common defence they will be unlikely to co-operate in anything, it is equally true that a beginning must be made somewhere if the conception of European Union is ever to be realised. The approach to political union may be made more readily through co-operation in defence than through co-operation in economics.